Toews Family

*** Zack is currently in the hospital again as he was septic from the last surgery on October 10th (story below). The Toews family needs help as Zack cannot work, and Ashley has been trying to juggle being with Zack in Jacksonville and taking care of their daughter Hannah who also has this disease. This will be an extremely long road for them.

The story below is pulled from Ashley's facebook from October 10th:

Almost four years ago, Zack was diagnosed with a very rare genetic disorder called FAP (familial adenomatous polyposis). In a nutshell, it means he is missing the APC gene that would usually suppress polyps. When he was diagnosed, it had already taken over his GI tract. At that time, he was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer that had spread to his lymph nodes. He had a colectomy, proctectomy, ileostomy, reverse take down, and a bunch of other surgeries in between as well as 12 rounds of Chemo. It’s safe to say we practically lived at the hospitals in San Diego. It was a crazy two years.

Fast forward to the beginning of 2022. We had a routine visit where they discovered several more large tumors, his small intestines carpeted in polyps and a bunch of other medical terminology. We were told shortly after by his specialist in San Diego, that his disease had become too complex and they would no longer be able to treat him at their hospital. That was a giant gut punch.

We had been discussing the idea of moving out of state and had been reluctant because we loved our care team… well this was the sign we needed. I had been doing research on the “best of the best” for this horrible disease. (Hannah Grace also has this as well, so we knew we needed somewhere good). One of the tops is in Ohio… and that’s a big fat NO. And the other was in Jacksonville, FL. Conveniently my mom was actually building a house an hour south. This fast-tracked our plan and we sold our house, jumped in our cars (with 3 cats and 3 dogs) and moved to Florida.

We knew from his previous Drs that we needed to be seen immediately. We weren’t able to get an appt until the end of Sept.

Don’t worry; Zack is such a go-getter that he fast-tracked that timeline by getting admitted to the hospital several times. This disease also affects the gallbladder, pancreas, stomach etc.

It’s taken a while to get some answers as he has a team of 20 top surgeons all discussing him. (He’s always been EXTRA).

Modern Medicine is FASCINATING. Today Zack has a procedure where a surgeon goes in with a camera and tattoos his small intestines, where the surgeons need to stop. He already has such minimal intestines that every single bit is so important. This is done in preparation for his surgery next Thursday.

He will have a team of surgeons performing a Whipple procedure. It will be about an 8-10 hour surgery followed by 7-10 day hospital stay, and 8-week recovery.…. We have another long road ahead of us.